DecoATe Your AT. Your choice. Your story.

DecorATe is a part of a broader art project called Adapted: Investigating what is gained in fuction but lost in identity when AT is prescribed and how Art and creative expression can help an individual fight medicalisation.

DecorATe is all about community and flipping the script on assistive technology. Instead of focusing on what a body can't do, we celebrate the choices people make! We're bringing the community together to decorate the AT that helps them move, hear, communicate and live, in whatever style feels like them.

About

My name is Chloe Wigg

I am a retired Paramedic, Artist and AT user.

DecorATe is my passion project. Inviting Assistive Technology (AT) users, those with invisible disabilities/ chronic illness, carers, loved ones and the community as a whole to come together for free and celebrate Art, choice and community.

I want individuals to come and decorate an every day item. Something that helps them get out and about, that might be AT, or an item of clothing, or an accessory.

There's a subtle but powerful shift at the heart of DecorATe: moving away from why someone needs an aid, to how good it looks.

I noticed it myself. When my condition is less noticeable and I could get by with a walking stick, people would ask me "What have you done to yourself?" kind and predictable interactions, but ones that always started with what was wrong with me.

When I use my fancy light up cane, the questions were so very different "Wow where did you get that stick?" "You should put a torch in that to make it light up!" and so on.

It made me realize that individual style/ art and creativity can help reshape public conversations and encourage connection as equals.

That's what DecorATe is about.

Not making space in the margins to celebrate the marginalized, bringing everyone into the center.

Not hiding assistive technology or just tolerating it ... but celebrating it.